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COLLECTED POEMS OF 
ALICE MEYNELL 




ALICE MEYNELL 

FROM A DRAWING BY JOHN S. SARGENT, R.A. 



POEMS 

by 

Alice Meynell 



New York: 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

597-599 Fifth Avenue 

1913 



To 

W, M. 



THE CONTENTS 

LATER POEMS 

The Shepherdess Page 13 

The Two Poets , 14 

The Lady Poverty 15 

November Blue 16 

A Dead Harvest 17 

The Watershed 18 

The Joyous Wanderer lo 

The Rainy Summer 21 

The Roaring Frost 22 

West Wind in Winter 23 

The Fold 25 

" Why virilt thou Chide?" 26 

Veneration of Images 27 

"I am the Way" 28 

Via, et Veritas, et Vita 29 

Parentage 30 

The Modern Mother 3 1 

Unto us a Son is Given 32 

Veni Creator 33 

Two Boyhoods 54. 

To Sylvia 35 

Saint Catherine of Siena 38 

Chimes aq 

A Poet's Wife 41 

Messina, 1908 42 



The Contents 




The Unknown God 


Page 43 


A General Communion 


45 


The Fugitive 


46 


In Portugal, 191 2 


47 


The Crucifixion 


48 


The Newer Vainglory 


49 


In Manchester Square 


50 


Maternity 


51 


The First Snow 


52 


The Courts 


53 


The Launch 


54 


To the Body 


55 


The Unexpected Peril 


56 


Christ in the Universe 


q8 


Beyond Knowledge 


60 


At Night 


61 


EARLY POEMS 




In Early Spring 


65 


To the Beloved 


(>1 


An Unmarked Festival 


69 


In Autumn 


71 


Parted 


74 


" Soeur Monique " 


76 


Regrets 


80 


The Visiting Sea 


82 


After a Parting 


83 


Builders of Ruins 
8 


84 



The Contents 




Sonnets 




Thoughts in Separation 


Page 87 


The Garden 


88 


Your Own Fair Youth 


89 


The Young Neophyte 


90 


Spring on the Alban Hills 


91 


In February 


92 


A Shattered Lute 


93 


Renouncement 


94 


To a Daisy 


95 


San Lorenzo's Mother 


96 


The Lover Urges the Better Thrift 


98 


Cradle-Song at Twilight 


99 


Song of the Night at Daybreak 


100 


A Letter from a Girl to her own Old 


Age loi 


Advent Meditation 


105 


A Poet's Fancies 




The Love of Narcissus 


106 


To Any Poet 


107 


To one Poem in a Silent Time 


109 


The Moon to the Sun 


no 


The Spring to the Summer 


III 


The Day to the Night 


112 


A Poet of one Mood 


113 


A Song of Derivations 


114 


Singers to Come 


115 


Unlinked 


117 


B 


9 



This volume includes the author's 'very eariy yerse^ first 
publisJiedas ''^Preludes " and afterwards as ^^Poems^' 
{ist edition, 1893; loM edition, ^9^0) 
a/so the ^^ Later Poems" (issued in 1 90 1 ), 
together with others, since com- 
posed, here collected for the 
first time. 



LATER POEMS 



Later Poems 



THE SHEPHERDESS 

SHE walks — the lady of my delight — 
A shepherdess of sheep. 
Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them 
white; 

She guards them from the steep ; 
She feeds them on the fragrant height, 
And folds them in for sleep. 

She roams maternal hills and bright, 
Dark valleys safe and deep. 

Into that tender breast at night 
The chastest stars may peep. 

She walks — the lady of my delight — 
A shepherdess of sheep. 

She holds her little thoughts in sight, 
Though gay they run and leap. 

She is so circumspect and right; 
She has her soul to keep. 

She walks — the lady of my delight — 
A shepherdess of sheep. 



13 



Later Poems 



THE TWO POETS 

WHOSE is the speech 
That moves the voices of this lonely- 
beech? 
Out of the long west did this wild wind come — 
O strong and silent ! And the tree was dumb, 

Ready and dumb, until 
The dumb gale struck it on the darkened hill. 

Two memories. 
Two powers, two promises, two silences 
Closed in this cry, closed in these thousand 

leaves 
Articulate. This sudden hour retrieves 

The purpose of the past. 
Separate, apart — embraced, embraced at last. 

"Whose is the word? 
Is it I that spake? Is it thou? Is it I that heard?" 
" Thine earth was solitary, yet I found thee! " 
" Thy sky was pathless, but I caught, I bound 
thee. 

Thou visitant divine." 
" O thou my Voice, the word was thine." " Was 

thine." 
14 



Later Poems 



THE LADY POVERTY 

THE Lady Poverty was fair : 
But she has lost her looks of late, 
With change of times and change of air. 
Ah slattern ! she neglects her hair, 
Her gown, her shoes ; she keeps no state 
As once when her pure feet were bare. 

Or — almost worse, if worse can be — 
She scolds in parlours, dusts and trims, 
Watches and counts. Oh, is this she 
Whom Francis met, whose step was free, 
Who with Obedience carolled hymns, 
In Umbria walked with Chastity? 

Where is her ladyhood? Not here, 
Not among modern kinds of men; 
But in the stony fields, where clear 
Through the thin trees the skies appear. 
In delicate spare soil and fen. 
And slender landscape and austere. 



15 



Later Poems 



NOVEMBER BLUE 

The golden tint of the electric lights seems to give 
a complementary colour to the air in the early 
evening. — Essay on London. 



O 



HEAVENLY colour, London town 
Has blurred it from her skies; 
And, hooded in an earthly brown, 
Unheaven'd the city lies. 
No longer standard-like this hue 

Above the broad road flies; 
Nor does the narrow street the blue 
Wear, slender pennon-wise. 

But when the gold and silver lamps 

Colour the London dew, 
And, misted by the winter damps, 

The shops shine bright anew — 
Blue comes to earth, it walks the street, 

It dyes the wide air through; 
A mimic sky about their feet. 

The throng go crowned with blue. 



i6 



Later Poems 

A DEAD HARVEST 

IN KENSINGTON GARDENS 

A LONG the graceless grass of town 
L\ They rake the rows of red and brown, 
-*- ^ Dead leaves, unlike the rows of hay- 
Delicate, touched with gold and grey, 
Raked long ago and far away. 

A narrow silence in the park, 
Between the lights a narrow dark. 
One street rolls on the north; and one, 
Muffled, upon the south doth run; 
Amid the mist the work is done. 

A futile crop ! — for it the fire 
Smoulders, and, for a stack, a pyre. 
So go the town's lives on the breeze, 
Even as the sheddings of the trees; 
Bosom nor barn is filled with these. 



17 



Later Poems 



THE WATERSHED 

Lines written between Munich and Verona 



B 



LACK mountains pricked with pointed pine 

A melancholy sky. 
Out-distanced was the German vine, 
The sterile fields lay high. 
From swarthy Alps I travelled forth 
Aloft; it was the north, the north; 
Bound for the Noon was I. 



I seemed to breast the streams that day; 

I met, opposed, withstood 
The northward rivers on their way, 

My heart against the flood — 
My heart that pressed to rise and reach. 
And felt the love of altering speech. 

Of frontiers, in its blood. 

But oh the unfolding South ! the burst 

Of summer ! Oh to see 
Of all the southward brooks the first ! 

The travelling heart went free 
With endless streams; that strife was stopped; 
And down a thousand vales I dropped, 

I flowed to Italy. 



Later Poems 



THE JOYOUS WANDERER 

Translated from M. Catulle Mendes 

I GO by road, I go by street — 
Lira, la, la! 
O white high roads, ye know my feet ! 
A loaf I carry and, all told, 
Three broad bits of lucky gold — 

Lira, la, la! 
And oh, within my flowering heart, 
(Sing, dear nightingale!) is my Sweet. 

A poor man met me and begged for bread- 
Lira, la, la! 
" Brother, take all the loaf," I said, 
I shall but go with lighter cheer — 

Lira, la, la! 
And oh within my flowering heart 
(Sing, sweet nightingale !) is my Dear. 

A thief I met on the lonely way — 

Lira, la, la ! 
He took my gold; I cried to him, " Stay! 
And take my pocket and make an end." 

Lira, la, la! 

19 



The Joyous Wanderer 

And oh within my flowering heart 
(Sing, soft nightingale!) is my Friend. 

Now on the plain I have met with death- 
Lira, la, la ! 

My bread is gone, my gold, my breath. 

But oh this heart is not afraid — 
Lira, la, la! 

For oh, within this lonely heart 

(Sing, sad nightingale !) is my Maid. 



20 



T 



Later Poems 



THE RAINY SUMMER 

HERE'S much afoot in heaven and earth 

this year; 
The winds hunt up the sun, hunt up the 
moon, 
Trouble the dubious dawn, hasten the drear 
Height of a threatening noon. 

No breath of boughs, no breath of leaves, of 
fronds 

May linger or grow warm ; the trees are loud; 
The forest, rooted, tosses in his bonds, 

And strains against the cloud. 

No scents may pause within the garden-fold; 

The rifled flowers are cold as ocean-shells; 
Bees, humming in the storm, carry their cold 

Wild honey to cold cells. 



2t 



Later Poems 



THE ROARING FROST 

A FLOCK of winds came winging from the 
Z\ North, 
-^ ^Strong birds with fighting pinions driving 
forth 

With a resounding call: — 

Where will they close their wings and cease their 

cries — 
Between what warming seas and conquering 

skies — 

And fold, and fall? 



22 



Later Poems 



WEST WIND IN WINTER 

A NOTHER day awakes. And who— 
/_\ Changing the world — is this? 
-*• -^He comes at whiles, the winter through, 
West Wind ! I would not miss 
His sudden tryst: the long, the new 
Surprises of his kiss. 

Vigilant, I make haste to close 
With him who comes my way. 

I go to meet him as he goes ; 
I know his note, his lay, 

His colour and his morning-rose, 
And I confess his day. 

My window waits ; at dawn I hark 

His call; at morn I meet 
His haste around the tossing park 

And down the softened street ; 
The gentler light is his ; the dark, 

The grey — he turns it sweet. 



23 



West Wind in Winter 

So too, so too, do I confess 
My poet when he sings. 

He rushes on my mortal guess 
With his immortal things. 

I feel, I know him. On I press — 
He finds me 'twixt his wings. 



24. 



Later Poems 



THE FOLD 

BEHOLD, 
The time is now ! Bring back, bring back 
Thy flocks of fancies, wild of whim. 
Oh, lead them from the mountain-track — 

Thy frolic thoughts untold. 
Oh, bring them in — the fields grow dim — 
And let me be the fold ! 

Behold, 
The time is now ! Call in, oh call 
Thy pasturing kisses gone astray 
For scattered sweets; gather them all 

To shelter from the cold. 
Throng them together, close and gay, 

And let me be the fold ! 



25 



Later Poems 



"WHY WILT THOU CHIDE?" 



w 



HY wilt thou chide, 
Who hast attained to be denied? 
Oh learn, above 
All price is my refusal, Love. 

My sacred Nay 
Was never cheapened by the way. 
Thy single sorrow crowns thee lord 
Of an unpurchasable word. 

strong, O pure! 

As Yea makes happier loves secure, 

1 vow thee this 
Unique rejection of a kiss. 

I guard for thee 
This jealous sad monopoly. 
I seal this honour thine; none dare 
Hope for a part in thy despair. 



26 



Later Poems 



VENERATION OF IMAGES 



T 



HOU man, first-comer, whose wide arms 
entreat, 

Gather, clasp, welcome, bind. 
Lack, or remember; whose warm pulses beat 
With love of thine own kind : — 



Unlifted for a blessing on yon sea, 

Unshrined on this highway, 
O flesh, O grief, thou too shalt have our knee. 

Thou rood of every day ! 



27 



Later Poems 



"I AM THE WAY" 

THOU art the Way. 
Hadst Thou been nothing but the goal, 
I cannot say 
If Thou hadst ever met my soul. 

I cannot see — 
I , child of process — if there lies 

An end for me, 
Full of repose, full of replies. 

I'll not reproach 
The road that winds, my feet that err. 

Access, approach 
Art Thou, Time, Way, and Wayfarer. 



28 



Later Poems 



VIA, ET VERITAS, ET VITA 



Y 



OU never attained to Him." " If to attain 

Be to abide, then that may be." 

" Endless the way, followed with how much 



pain!" 



** The way was He.' 



29 



Later Poems 



PARENTAGE 

" When Augustus Caesar legislated against the un- 
married citizens of Rome, he declared them to be, 
in some sort, slayers of the people." 

AH no, not these ! 
l\ These, who were childless, are not they who 
•^ ■*' gave 

So many dead unto the journeying wave, 
The helpless nurselings of the cradling seas ; 
Not they who doomed by infallible decrees 
Unnumbered man to the innumerable grave. 

But those who slay 
Are fathers. Theirs are armies. Death is theirs; 
The death of innocences and despairs; 
The dying of the golden and the grey. 
The sentence, when these speak it, has no Nay. 
And she who slays is she who bears, who bears. 



30 



Later Poems 



THE MODERN MOTHER 

OH, what a kiss 
With fihal passion overcharged is this ! 
To this misgiving breast 
This child runs, as a child ne'er ran to rest 
Upon the light heart and the unoppressed. 

Unhoped, unsought ! 
A little tenderness, this mother thought 

The utmost of her meed. 
She looked for gratitude; content indeed 
With thus much that her nine years' love had 
bought. 

Nay, even with less. 
This mother, giver of life, death, peace, distress, 

Desired ah! not so much 
Thanks as forgiveness; and the passing touch 
Expected, and the slight, the brief caress. 

O filial light 
Strong in these childish eyes, these new, these bright 

Intelligible stars ! their rays 
Are near the constant earth, guides in the maze, 
Natural, true, keen in this dusk of days. 

31 



Later Poems 



UNTO US A SON IS GIVEN 



G 



IVEN, not lent, 
And not withdrawn — once sent, 
This Infant of mankind, this One, 
Is still the little welcome Son. 



New every year, 

New born and newly dear. 

He comes with tidings and a song, 

The ages long, the ages long ; 

Even as the cold 

Keen winter grows not old. 

As childhood is so fresh, foreseen, 

And spring in the familiar green. 

Sudden as sweet 

Come the expected feet. 

All joy is young, and new all art. 

And He, too. Whom we have by heart. 



32 



Later Poems 



VENI CREATOR 

SO humble things Thou hast borne for us, O God, 
Left'st Thou a path of lowHness untrod? 
Yes, one, till now; another Olive-Garden. 
For we endure the tender pain of pardon, — 
One with another we forbear. Give heed. 
Look at the mournful world Thou hast decreed. 
The time has come. At last we hapless men 
Know all our haplessness all through. Come,then, 
Endure undreamed humility: Lord of Heaven, 
Come to our ignorant hearts and be forgiven. 



33 



Later Poems 



TWO BOYHOODS 

LUMINOUS passions reign 
High in the soul of man; and they are twain. 
'Of these he hath made the poetry of earth — 
Hath made his nobler tears, his magic mirth. 

Fair Love is one of these, 
The visiting vision of seven centuries; 
And one is love of Nature — love to tears — 
The modern passion of this hundred years. 

Oh never to such height. 
Oh never to such spiritual light — 
The light of lonely visions, and the gleam 
Of secret splendid sombre suns in dream — 

Oh never to such long 
Glory in life, supremacy in song. 
Had either of these loves attained in joy. 
But for the ministration of a boy. 

Dante was one who bare 
Love in his deep heart, apprehended there 
When he was yet a child ; and from that day 
The radiant love has never passed away. 

34 



Two Boyhoods 

And one was Wordsworth; he 
Conceived the love of Nature childishly 
As no adult heart might; old poets sing 
That exaltation by remembering. 

For no divine 
Intelligence, or art, or fire, or wine, 
Is high-delirious as that rising lark — 
The child's soul and its daybreak in the dark. 

And Letters keep these two 
Heavenly treasures safe the ages through, 
Safe from ignoble benison or ban — 
These two high childhoods in the heart of man. 



35 



E 



Later Poems 



TO SYLVIA 

TWO YEARS OLD 

ONG life to thee, long virtue, long delight, 
A flowering early and late ! 
Long beauty, grave to thought and gay to 

sight, 
A distant date! 



Yet, as so many poets love to sing 

(When young the child will die), 
" No autumn will destroy this lovely spring,'' 

So, Sylvia, I. ^ 

•v:^i •■ 

I'll write thee dapper verse and touching rhyme ; 

" Our eyes shall not behold — " 
The commonplace shall serve for thee this time : 

" Never grow old." 

For there's another way to stop thy clock 

Within my cherishing heart, 
To carry thee unalterable, and lock 

Thy youth apart : 



36 



To Sylvia 

Thy flower, for me, shall evermore be hid 

In this close bud of thine. 
Not, Sylvia, by thy death — O God forbid! — 

Merely by mine. 



37 



Later Poems 



SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA 

Written for Strephon, who said that a woman must 
lean or she should not have his chivalry. 

THE light young man who was to die, 
Stopped in his frolic by the State, 
Aghast, beheld the world go by; 
But Catherine crossed his dungeon gate. 

She found his lyric courage dumb, 

His stripling beauties strewn in wrecks, 

His modish bravery overcome; 
Small profit had he of his sex. 

On any old wife's level he, 

For once — for all. But he alone — 

Man — must not fear the mystery, 
The pang, the passage, the unknown: 

Death. He did fear it, in his cell, 
Darkling amid the Tuscan sun; 

And, weeping, at her feet he fell. 
The sacred, young, provincial nun. 

38 



Saint Catherine of Siena 

She prayed, she preached him innocent; 

She gave him to the Sacrificed ; 
On her courageous breast he leant, 

The breast where beat the heart of Christ. 



He left it for the block, with cries 
Of victory on his severed breath. 

That crimson head she clasped, her eyes 
Blind with the splendour of his death. 

And will the man of modern years 

— Stern on the Vote — withhold from thee, 
Thou prop, thou cross, erect, in tears, 

Catherine, the service of his knee? 



39 



Later Poems 



CHIMES 



B 



RIEF, on a flying night, 
From the shaken tower, 
A flock of bells take flight, 
And go with the hour. 



Like birds from the cote to the gales, 

Abrupt — Ohark! 
A fleet of bells set sails, 

And go to the dark. 

Sudden the cold airs swing. 

Alone, aloud, 
A verse of bells takes wing 

And flies with the cloud. 



40 



Later Poems 



A POET'S WIFE 

I SAW a tract of ocean locked inland, 
Within a field's embrace — 
The very sea ! afar it fled the strand, 
And gave the seasons chase, 
And met the night alone, the tempest spanned, 
Saw sunrise face to face. 



O Poet, more than ocean, lonelier! 

In inaccessible rest 
And storm remote, thou, sea of thoughts, dost err, 

Scattered through east to west, — 
Now, while thou closest with the kiss of her 

Who locks thee to her breast. 



41 



Later Poems 



MESSINA, 1908 

IORD, Thou hast crushed Thy tender ones, o'er- 
thrown 
-^Thy strong, Thy fair; Thy man Thou hast 
unmanned, 
Thyelaborateworksunwrought,Thydeedsundone, 

Thy Icvely sentient human plan unplanned; 
Destroyer, we have cowered beneath Thine own 
Immediate, unintelligible hand. 



Lord, Thou hast hastened to retrieve, to heal. 
To feed, to bind, to clothe, to quench the brand, 

To prop the ruin, to bless and to anneal; 

Hast sped Thy ships by sea. Thy trains by land, 

Shed pity and tears ; our shattered fingers feel 
Thy mediate and intelligible hand. 



42 



o 



Later Poems 



THE UNKNOWN GOD 

NE of the crowd went up, 
And knelt before the Paten and the Cup, 
Received the Lord, returned in peace, and 
prayed 
Close to my side ; then in my heart I said : 



" O Christ, in this man's life — 

This stranger who is Thine — in all his strife, 

All his f ehcity, his good and ill. 

In the assaulted stronghold of his will, 

" I do confess Thee here. 
Alive within this life; I know Thee near 
Within this lonely conscience, closed away 
Within this brother's solitary day. 

" Christ in his unknown heart, 
His intellect unknown — this love, this art. 
This battle and this peace, this destiny 
That I shall never know, look upon me ! 



43 



The Unknown God 

" Christ in his numbered breath, 
Christ in his beating heart and in his death, 
Christ in his mystery! From that secret place 
And from that separate dwelling, give me 
grace." 



44 



Later Poems 



A GENERAL COMMUNION 



I 



SAW the throng, so deeply separate, 
Fed at one only board — 
The devout people, moved, intent, elate. 
And the devoted Lord. 



Oh struck apart ! not side from human side, 

But soul from human soul, 
As each asunder absorbed the multiplied, 

The ever unparted whole. 

I saw this people as a field of flowers, 

Each grown at such a price 
The sum of unimaginable powers 

Did no more than suffice. 

A thousand single central daisies they, 

A thousand of the one ; 
For each, the entire monopoly of day ; 

For each, the whole of the devoted sun. 



45 



Later Poems 



THE FUGITIVE 

" Nous avons chasse ce Jesus-Christ." 

— French Publicist 

YES, from the ingrate heart, the street 
Of garrulous tongue, the warm retreat 
Within the village and the town; 
Not from the lands where ripen brown 
A thousand thousand hills of wheat ; 



Not from the long Burgundian line, 
The Southward, sunward range of vine. 

Hunted, He never will escape 

The flesh, the blood, the sheaf, the grape, 
That feed His man — the bread, the wine. 



46 



Later Poems 



IN PORTUGAL, 19 12 

AND will they cast the altars down, 
Scatter the chalice, crush the bread? 
^In field, in village, and in town 
He hides an unregarded head ; 



Waits in the corn-lands far and near. 
Bright in His sun, dark in His frost, 

Sweet in the vine, ripe in the ear — 
Lonely unconsecrated Host. 

In ambush at the merry board 

The Victim lurks unsacrificed ; 
The mill conceals the harvest's Lord, 

The wine-press holds the unbidden Christ. 



47 



Later Poems 
THE CRUCIFIXION 

** A PALTRY SACRIFICE " — Preface to a Play 

OH, man's capacity 
For spiritual sorrow, corporal pain! 
Who has explored the deepmost of that sea, 
With heavy links of a far-fathoming chain? 

That melancholy lead, 
Let down in guilty and in innocent hold, 
Yea into childish hands delivered, 
Leaves the sequestered floor unreached, untold. 

One only has explored 
The deepmost; but He did not die of it. 
Not yet, not yet He died. Man's human Lord 
Touched the extreme; it is not infinite. 

But over the abyss 
Of God's capacity for woe He stayed 
One hesitating hour; what gulf was this? 
Forsaken He went down, and was afraid. 



48 



Later Poems 



THE NEWER VAINGLORY 



T 



WO men went up to pray; and one gave 
thanks, 

Not with himself — aloud, 
With proclamation, calling on the ranks 

Of an attentive crowd. 



" Thank God, I clap not my own humble breast, 

But other ruffians' backs. 
Imputing crime — such is my tolerant haste — 

To any man that lacks. 



" For I am tolerant, generous, keep no rules. 

And the age honours me. 
Thank God, I am not as these rigid fools. 

Even as this Pharisee." 



49 



Later Poems 



IN MANCHESTER SQUARE 

(in memoriam t.h.) 

THE paralytic man has dropped in death 
The crossing-sweeper's brush to which he 
clung, 
One-handed, twisted, dwarfed, scanted of breath. 
Although his hair was young. 

I saw this year the winter vines of France, 

Dwarfed, twisted, goblins in the frosty drouth. 

Gnarled, crippled, blackened little stems askance, 
On long hills to the South. 

Great green and golden hands of leaves ere long 
Shall proffer clusters in that vineyard wide. 

And oh! his might, his sweet, his wine, his song, 
His stature, since he died ! 



50 



Later Poems 



MATERNITY 



o 



NE wept whose only child was dead. 
New-born, ten years ago. 
"Weep not; he is in bliss," they said. 
She answered, " Even so. 



" Ten years ago was born in pain 
A child, not now forlorn. 

But oh, ten years ago, in vain, 
A mother, a mother was born." 



51 



Later Poems 



THE FIRST SNOW 

NOTyetwas winter come to earth's soft floor, 
The tideless wave, the warm white road, 
the shore, 
The serried town whose small street tortuously 
Led darkling to the dazzling sea. 

Not yet to breathing man, not to his song, 
Not to his comforted heart; not to the long 
Close-cultivated lands beneath the hill. 

Summer was gently with them still. 

But on the Apennine mustered the cloud; 
The grappling storm shut down. Aloft, aloud, 
Ruled secret tempest one long day and night, 
Until another morning's light. 

O tender mountain-tops and delicate. 
Where summer-long the westering sunlight sate! 
Within that fastness darkened from the sun, 
What solitary things were done? 

The clouds let go, they rose, they winged away; 
Snow-white the altered mountains faced the day. 
As saints who keep their counsel sealed and fast, 
Their anguish over-past. 
52 



T 



Later Poems 



THE COURTS 

A FIGURE OF THE EPIPHANY 

HE poets' imageries are noble ways, 
Approaches to a plot, an open shrine. 
Their splendours, colours, avenues, 

arrays, 
Their courts that run with wine; 



Beautiful similes, " fair and flagrant things," 
Enriched, enamouring, — raptures, metaphors 
Enhancing life, are paths for pilgrim kings 
Made free of golden doors. 

And yet the open heavenward plot, with dew. 
Ultimate poetry, enclosed, enskyed 
(Albeit such ceremonies lead thereto) 
Stands on the yonder side. 

Plain, behind oracles, it is; and past 
All symbols, simple; perfect, heavenly- wild. 
The song some loaded poets reach at last — 
The kings that found a Child. 



53 



Later Poems 



THE LAUNCH 

FORTH, to the alien gravity, 
Forth, to the laws of ocean, we 
Builders on earth by laws of land 
Entrust this creature of our hand 
Upon the calculated sea. 

Fast bound to shore we cling, we creep, 
And make our ship ready to leap 

Light to the flood, equipped to ride 
The strange conditions of the tide — 
New weight, new force, new world : the 
Deep. 

Ah thus — not thus — the Dying, kissed, 
Cherished, exhorted, shriven, dismissed; 
By all the eager means we hold 
We, warm, prepare him for the cold, 
To keep the incalculable tryst. 



54 



Later Poems 



TO THE BODY 

THOU inmost, ultimate 
Council of judgment, palace of decrees, 
Where the high senses hold their spiritual 
state, 

Sued by earth's embassies. 
And sign, approve, accept, conceive, create; 

Create — thy senses close 
With the world's pleas. The random odours reach 
Their sweetness in the place of thy repose. 

Upon thy tongue the peach. 
And in thy nostrils breathes the breathing rose. 

To thee, secluded one, 
The dark vibrations of the sightless skies. 
The lovely inexplicit coloiirs run; 

The light gropes for those eyes. 
O thou august ! thou dost command the sun. 

Music, all dumb, hath trod 
Into thine ear her one effectual way; 
And fire and cold approach to gain thy nod, 

Where thou call'st up the day. 
Where thou awaitest the appeal of God. 

55 



Later Poems 



THE UNEXPECTED PERIL 

UNLIKE the youth that all men say 
They prize — youth of abounding 
blood, 
In love with the sufficient day, 

And gay in growth, and strong in bud ; 

Unlike was mine ! Then my first slumber 
Nightly rehearsed my last; each breath 

Knew itself one of the unknown number. 
But Life was urgent with me as Death. 

My shroud was in the flocks; the hill 
Within its quarry locked my stone; 

My bier grew in the woods ; and still 
Life spurred me where I paused alone. 

" Begin! " Life called. Again her shout, 
" Make haste while it is called to-day ! " 

Her exhortations plucked me out, 

Hunted me, turned me, held me at bay. 

But if my youth is thus hard pressed 
(I thought) what of a later year? 

If the end so threats this tender breast, 
What of the days when it draws near ? 

56 



The Unexpected Peril 

Draws near, and little done ? yet lo, 
Dread has forborne, and haste lies by. 

I was beleaguered; now the foe 

Has raised the siege, I know not why. 

I see them troop away; I ask 
Were they in sooth mine enemies — 

Terror, the doubt, the lash, the task? 
What heart has my new housemate, Ease ? 

How am I left, at last, alive, 

To make a stranger of a tear ? 
What did I do one day to drive 

From me the vigilant angel, Fear? 

The diligent angel, Labour? Ay, 

The inexorable angel. Pain? 
Menace me, lest indeed I die. 

Sloth ! Turn ; crush, teach me fear again ! 



H 



57 



Later Poems 



CHRIST IN THE UNIVERSE 

'TTTTITH this ambiguous earth 
\ \ / His dealings have been told us. These 
^ ' abide: 

The signal to a maid, the human birth, 
The lesson, and the young Man crucified. 

But not a star of all 
The innumerable host of stars has heard 
How He administered this terrestrial ball. 
Our race have kept their Lord's entrusted Word. 

Of His earth-visiting feet 
None knows the secret, cherished, perilous, 
The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, 

sweet. 
Heart-shattering secret of His way with us. 

No planet knows that this 
Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave, 
Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss, 
Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave. 



J8 



Christ in the Universe 

Nor, in our little day, 
May His devices with the heavens be guessed, 
His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way 
Or His bestOM^als there be manifest. 

But in the eternities, 
Doubtless we shall compare together, hear 
A million alien Gospels, in what guise 
He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear. 

O, be prepared, my soul! 
To read the inconceivable, to scan 
The million forms of God those stars unroll 
When, in our turn, we show to them a Man. 



59 



I 



Later Poems 



BEYOND KNOWLEDGE 

" Totir sins . . . shall be white as snow!''' 

NTO the rescued world newcomer, 
The newly-dead stepped up, and cried, 



" Oh what is that, sweeter than summer 

Was to my heart before I died? 
Sir (to an angel), what is yonder 

More bright than the remembered skies, 
A lovelier light, a softer splendour 

Than when the moon was wont to rise? 
Surely no sinner wears such seeming 

Even the Rescued World within?" 

" O the success of His redeeming! 
O child, it is a rescued sin ! " 



60 



H 



Later Poems 
AT NIGHT 

To W. M. 

OME, home from the horizon far and clear, 

Hither the soft wings sweep; 
Flocks of the memories of the day draw near 

The dovecote doors of sleep. 



Oh, which are they that come through sweetest light 

Of all these homing birds ? 
Which with the straightest and the swiftest flight? 

Your words to me, vour words ! 



6i 



EARLY POEMS 



Early Poems 



IN EARLY SPRING 

O SPRING, I know thee! Seek for sweet 
surprise 
In the young children's eyes. 
But I have learnt the years, and know the yet 

Leaf- folded violet. 
Mine ear, awake to silence, can foretell 

The cuckoo's fitful bell. 
I wander in a grey time that encloses 

June and the wild hedge-roses. 
A year's procession of the flowers doth pass 

My feet, along the grass. 
And all you wild birds silent yet, I know 

The notes that stir you so, 
Your songs yet half devised in the dim dear 

Beginnings of the year. 
In these young days you meditate your part; 

I have it all by heart. 
I know the secrets of the seeds of flowers 

Hidden and warm with showers. 
And how, in kindling Spring, the cuckoo shall 

Alter his interval. 
But not a flower or song I ponder Is 

My own, but memory's. 

6i 



In Early Spring 

I shall be silent in those days desired 

Before a world inspired. 
O all brown birds, compose your old song- 
phrases, 

Earth, thy familiar daisies! 

A poet mused upon the dusky height, 

Between two stars towards night. 
His purpose in his heart. I watched, a space, 

The meaning of his face : 
There was the secret, fled from earth and skies, 

Hid in his grey young eyes. 
My heart and all the Summer wait his choice. 

And wonder for his voice. 
Who shall foretell his songs, and who aspire 

But to divine his lyre ? 
Sweet earth, we know thy dimmest mysteries, 

But he is lord of his. 



66 



Early Poems 



TO THE BELOVED 

OH, not more subtly silence strays 
Amongst the winds, between the voices, 
Mingling alike with pensive lays, 
And with the music that rejoices. 
Than thou art present in my days. 

My silence, life returns to thee 

In all the pauses of her breath. 
Hush back to rest the melody 

That out of thee awakeneth ; 
And thou, wake ever, wake for me ! 

/ 
Thou art like silence all unvexed. 

Though wild words part my soul from thee. 
Thou art like silence unperplexed, 

A secret and a mystery 
Between one footfall and the next. 

Most dear pause in a mellow lay! 

Thou art inwoven with every air. 
With thee the wildest tempests play. 

And snatches of thee everywhere 
Make little heavens throughout a day. 

67 



To the Beloved 

Darkness and solitude shine, for me. 

For life's fair outward part are rife 
The silver noises ; let them be. 

It is the very soul of life 
Listens for thee, listens for thee. 

O pause between the sobs of cares ; 

O thought within all thought that is; 
Trance between laughters unawares : 

Thou art the shape of melodies. 
And thou the ecstasy of prayers ! 



68 



Early Poems 



AN UNMARKED FESTIVAL 



T 



HERE'S a feast undated, yet 
Both our true lives hold it fast, — 
Even the day when first we met. 
What a great day came and passed, 
— Unknown then, but known at last. 



And we met : You knew not me, 
Mistress of your joys and fears; 

Held my hand that held the key 
Of the treasure of your years, 
Of the fountain of your tears. 

For you knew not it was I, 
And I knew not it was you. 

We have learnt, as days went by. 
But a flower struck root and grew 
Underground, and no one knew. 

Day of days ! Unmarked it rose. 
In whose hours we were to meet; 

And forgotten passed. Who knows, 
Was earth cold or sunny. Sweet, 
At the coming of your feet? 



69 



An Unmarked Festival 

One mere day, we thought; the measure 
Of such days the year fulfils. 

Now, how dearly would we treasure 
Something from its fields, its rills, 
And its memorable hills. 



70 



Early Poems 



IN AUTUMN 

HE leaves are many under my feet, 
And drift one way. 

Their scent of death is weary and sweet. 
A flight of them is in the grey 
Where sky and forest meet. 



T 



The low winds moan for dead sweet years ; 

The birds sing all for pain, 
Of a common thing, to weary ears, — 

Only a summer's fate of rain, 
And a woman's fate of tears. 

I walk to love and life alone 

Over these mournful places. 
Across the summer overthrown. 

The dead joys of these silent faces, 
To claim my own. 

I know his heart has beat to bright 

Sweet loves gone by. 
I know the leaves that die to-night 

Once budded to the sky. 
And I shall die from his delight. 

71 



In Autumn 

O leaves, so quietly ending now, 
You heard the cuckoos sing. 

And I will grow upon my bough 
If only for a Spring, 

And fall when the rain is on my brow. 

tell me, tell me ere you die. 
Is it worth the pain? 

You bloomed so fair, you waved so high; 

Now that the sad days wane, 
Are you repenting where you lie? 

1 lie amongst you, and I kiss 

Your fragrance mouldering. 
O dead delights, is it such bliss, 

That tuneful Spring? 
Is love so sweet, that comes to this? 

Kiss me again as I kiss you ; 

Kiss me again. 
For all your tuneful nights of dew. 

In this your time of rain, 
For all your kisses when Spring was new. 

You will not, broken hearts; let be. 

I pass across your death 
To a golden summer you shall not see, 

And in your dying breath 
There is no benison for me. 



72 



In Autumn 

There is an autumn yet to wane, 
There are leaves yet to fall, 

Which, when I kiss, may kiss again. 
And, pitied, pity me all for all, 

And love me in mist and rain. 



73 



Early Poems 



PARTED 

FAREWELL to one now silenced quite, 
Sent out of hearing, out of sight, — 
My friend of friends, whom I shall miss. 
He is not banished, though, for this, — 
Nor he, nor sadness, nor delight. 

Though I shall talk with him no more, 
A low voice sounds upon the shore. 
He must not watch my resting-place, 
But who shall drive a mournful face 
From the sad winds about my door? 

I shall not hear his voice complain. 
But who shall stop the patient rain? 
His tears must not disturb my heart. 
But who shall change the years, and part 
The world from every thought of pain? 

Although my life is left so dim. 
The morning crowns the mountain-rim ; 
Joy is not gone from summer skies, 
Nor innocence from children's eyes, 
And all these things are part of him. 
74 



Parted 

He is not banished, for the showers 
Yet wake this green warm earth of ours. 

How can the summer but be sweet? 

I shall not have him at my feet, 
And yet my feet are on the flowers. 



75 



Q 



76 



Early Poems 
"SCEUR MONIQUE" 

A Rondeau by Cou-perin 

UIET form of silent nun, 

What has given you to my inward eyes ? 

What has marked you, unknown one. 
In the throngs of centuries 
That mine ears do Hsten through? 
This old master's melody 
That expresses you, 
This admired simplicity. 
Tender, with a serious wit. 
And two words, the name of it, 
" Sceur Monique." 

And if sad the music is. 
It is sad with mysteries 
Of a small immortal thing 
That the passing ages sing, — 
Simple music making mirth 
Of the dying and the birth 
Of the people of the earth. 

No, not sad; we are beguiled. 
Sad with living as we are; 
Ours the sorrow, outpouring 
Sad self on a selfless thing. 
As our eyes and hearts are mild 
With our sympathy for Spring, 



" Soeur Monique" 

With a pity sweet and wild 
For the innocent and far, 
With our sadness in a star, 
Or our sadness in a child. 

But two words, and this sweet air. 

Soeur Monique, 
Had he more, who set you there? 
Was his music- dream of you 
Of some perfect nun he knew, 
Or of some ideal, as true? 

And I see you where you stand 

With your life held in your hand 

As a rosary of days. 

And your thoughts in calm arrays, 

And your innocent prayers are told 

On your rosary of days. 

And the young days and the old 

With their quiet prayers did meet 

When the chaplet was complete. 

Did it vex you, the surmise 

Of this wind of words, this storm of cries, 

Though you kept the silence so 

In the storms of long ago. 

And you keep it, like a star? 

— Of the evils triumphing. 
Strong, for all your perfect conquering. 

Silenced conqueror that you are? 

77 



Early Poems 

And I wonder at your peace, I wonder. 
Would it trouble you to know, 
Tender soul, the world and sin 
By your calm feet trodden under 

Long ago. 
Living now, mighty to win? 
And your feet are vanished like the snow. 

Vanished; but the poet, he 

In whose dream your face appears. 

He who ranges unknown years 

With your music in his heart, 

Speaks to you familiarly 

Where you keep apart. 

And invents you as you were. 

And your picture, O my nun ! 

Is a strangely easy one. 

For the holy weed you wear. 

For your hidden eyes and hidden hair. 

And in picturing you I may 

Scarcely go astray. 

O the vague reality. 

The mysterious certainty! 

O strange truth of these my guesses 

In the wide thought-wildernesses ! 

— ^Truth of one divined of many flowers; 

Of one raindrop in the showers 

Of the long-ago swift rain ; 

Of one tear of many tears 



78 



"Soeur Monique" 

In some world-renowned pain; 

Of one daisy 'mid the centuries of sun; 

Of a little living nun 

In the garden of the years. 

Yes, I am not far astray; 

But I guess you as might one 

Pausing when young March is grey, 

In a violet-peopled day; 

All his thoughts go out to places that he knew. 

To his child-home in the sun, 

To the fields of his regret, 

To one place i' the innocent March air, 

By one olive, and invent 

The familiar form and scent 

Safely; a white violet 

Certainly is there. 

Soeur Monique, remember me. 
'Tis not in the past alone 
I am picturing you to be; 
But my little friend, my own. 
In my moment, pray for me. 
For another dream is mine, 
And another dream is true, 

Sweeter even. 
Of the little ones that shine 
Lost within the light divine, — 
Of some meekest flower, or you, 

In the fields of Heaven. 



79 



A' 



Early Poems 



REGRETS 

S, when the seaward ebbing tide doth pour 
Out by the low sand spaces, 
The parting waves sHp back to clasp the shore 
With lingering embraces, — 



So in the tide of life that carries me 

From where thy true heart dwells, 

Waves of my thoughts and memories turn to thee 
With lessening farewells ; 

Waving of hands; dreams, when the day forgets; 

A care half lost in cares ; 
The saddest of my verses; dim regrets; 

Thy name among my prayers, 

I would the day might come, so waited for. 

So patiently besought. 
When I, returning, should fill up once more 

Thy desolated thought; 

And fill thy loneliness that lies apart 

In still, persistent pain. 
Shall I content thee, O thou broken heart. 

As the tide comes again, i 

80 i 



Regrets 

And brims the little sea-shore lakes, and sets 

Seaweeds afloat, and fills 
The silent pools, rivers and rivulets 

Among the inland hills? 



8i 



Early Poems 



THE VISITING SEA 

A S the inhastening tide doth roll, 
/\ Home from the deep, along the whole 
-^ ^Wide shining strand, and floods the caves, 
— ^Your love comes filling with happy waves 
The open sea-shore of my soul. 

■ But inland from the seaward spaces, 
None knows, not even you, the places 
Brimmed, at your coming, out of sight, 
— The little solitudes of delight 
This tide constrains in dim embraces. 

You see the happy shore, wave-rimmed. 
But know not of the quiet dimmed 
Rivers your coming floods and fills. 
The little pools 'mid happier hills, 
My silent rivulets, over-brimmed. 

What, I have secrets from you? Yes. 

But, visiting Sea, your love doth press 
And reach in further than you know. 
And fills all these; and, when you go, 

There 's loneliness in loneliness. 
82 



Early Poems 



AFTER A PARTING 

FAREWELL has long been said; I have 
forgone thee ; 
I never name thee even. 
But how shall I learn virtues and yet shun thee? 

For thou art so near Heaven 
That heavenward meditations pause upon thee. 

Thou dost beset the path to every shrine; 

My trembling thoughts discern 
Thy goodness in the good for which I pine; 

And if I turn from but one sin, I turn 
Unto a smile of thine. 

How shall I thrust thee apart 

Since all my growth tends to thee night and 
day — 
To thee faith, hope, and art? 

Swift are the currents setting all one way; 
They draw my life, my life, out of my heart. 



83 



Early Poems 



BUILDERS OF RUINS 



W 



E build with strength the deep tower wall 
That shall be shattered thus and thus. 
And fair and great are court and hall, 
But how fair — this is not for us, 
Who know the lack that lurks in all. 



We know, we know how all too bright 
The hues are that our painting wears. 

And how the marble gleams too white; — 
We speak in unknown tongues, the yeais 

Interpret everything aright, 

And crown with weeds our pride of towers. 
And warm our marble through with sun, 

And break our pavements through withflowers. 
With an Amen when all is done. 

Knowing these perfect things of ours. 

O days, we ponder, left alone, 

Like children in their lonely hour. 

And in our secrets keep your own, 
As seeds the colour of the flower. 

To-day they are not all unknown, 
84 



Builders of Ruins 

The stars that 'twixt the rise and fall, 

Like relic-seers, shall one by one 
Stand musing o'er our empty hall; 

And setting moons shall brood upon 
The frescoes of our inward wall. 

And when some midsummer shall be, 
Hither will come some little one 

(Dusty with bloom of flowers is he). 
Sit on a ruin i' the late long sun. 

And think, one foot upon his knee. 

And where they wrought, these lives of ours, 
So many-worded, many-souled, 

A North-west wind will take the towers. 
And dark with colour, sunny and cold, 

Will range alone among the flowers. 

And here or there, at our desire. 
The little clamorous owl shall sit 

Through her still time; and we aspire 
To make a law (and know not it) 

Unto the life of a wild briar. 

Our purpose is distinct and dear. 

Though from our open eyes 'tis hidden. 

Thou, Time to come, shalt make it clear. 
Undoing our work; we are children chidden 

With pity and smiles of many a year. 

85 



Builders of Ruins 

Who shall allot the praise, and guess 
What part is yours and what is ours? — 

O years that certainly will bless 

Our flowers with fruits, our seeds with 
flowers, 

With ruin all our perfectness. 

Be patient, Time, of our delays. 
Too happy hopes, and wasted fears. 

Our faithful ways, our wilful ways; 
Solace our labours, O our seers 

The seasons, and our bards the days; 

And make our pause and silence brim 

With the shrill children's play, and sweets 

Of those pathetic flowers and dim. 
Of those eternal flowers my Keats 

Dying felt growing over him ! 



86 



Sonnets 



THOUGHTS IN SEPARATION 

WE never meet ; yet we meet day by day 
Upon those hills of life, dim and immense — 
The good we love, and sleep, our innocence. 
O hills of life, high hills ! And, higher than they, 

Our guardian spirits meet at prayer and play. 
Beyond pain, joy, and hope, and long suspense, 
Above the summits of our souls, far hence, 

An angel meets an angel on the way. 

Beyond all good I ever believed of thee. 

Or thou of me, these always love and live. 
And though I fail of thy ideal of me. 

My angel falls not short. They greet each other. 

Who knows, they may exchange the kiss we give, 
Thou to thy crucifix, I to my mother. 



87 



Sonnets 



THE GARDEN 

Y heart shall be thy garden. Come, my own, 
Into thy garden ; thine be happy hours 
Among my fairest thoughts, my tallest 
flowers. 
From root to crowning petal thine alone. 



M 



Thine is the place from where the seeds are sown 
Up to the sky enclosed, with all its showers. 
But ah, the birds, the birds ! Who shall build 
bowers 

To keep these thine? O friend, the birds have flown. 

For as these come and go, and quit our pine 
To follow the sweet season, or, new-comers. 
Sing one song only from our alder-trees, 

My heart has thoughts, which, though thine eyes 
hold mine. 
Flit to the silent world and other summers. 
With wings that dip beyond the silver seas. 



88 



Sonnets 



YOUR OWN FAIR YOUTH 



Y 



OUR own fair youth, you care so little for it, 
Smiling towards Heaven, you would not stay 
the advances 
Of time and change upon your happiest fancies. 
I keep your golden hour, and will restore it. 



If ever, in time to come, you would explore it — 
Your old self, whose thoughts went like last 

year's pansies. 
Look unto me ; no mirror keeps its glances ; 

In my unfailing praises now I store it. 

To guard all j oys of yours f romTime's estranging, 
I shall be then a treasury where your gay, 
Happy, and pensive past unaltered is. 

I shall be then a garden charmed from changing, 
In which your June has never passed away. 
Walk there awhile among my memories. 



M 89 



Sonnets 



THE YOUNG NEOPHYTE 

WHO knows what days I answer for to-day? 
Giving the bud I give the flower. I bow 
This yet unfaded and a faded brow; 
Bending these knees and feeble knees, I pray. 

Thoughts yet unripe in me I bend one way, 
Give one repose to pain I know not now, 
One check to joy that comes, I guess not how. 

I dedicate my fields when Spring is grey. 

rash ! (I smile) to pledge my hidden wheat. 
I fold to-day at altars far apart 

Hands trembling with what toils? In their 
retreat 

I seal my love to-be, my folded art. 

1 light the tapers at my head and feet, 

And lay the crucifix on this silent heart. 



90 



Sonnets 



SPRING ON THE ALBAN HILLS 

O'ER the Campagna it is dim warm weather; 
The Spring comes with a full heart silently, 
And many thoughts ; a faint flash of the sea 
Divides two mists; straight falls the falling feather. 

With wild Spring meanings hill and plain together 
Grow pale, or just flush with a dust of flowers. 
Rome in the ages, dimmed with all her towers, 

Floats in the midst, a little cloud at tether. 

I fain would put my hands about thy face. 

Thou with thy thoughts, who art another Spring, 
And draw thee to me like a mournful child. 

Thou lookest on me from another place; 
I touch not this day's secret, nor the thing 
That in the silence makes thy soft eyes wild. 



91 



Sonnets 



IN FEBRUARY 

RICH meanings of the prophet-Spring adorn, 
Unseen, this colourless sky of folded showers, 
And folded winds; no blossom in the bowers; 
A poet's face asleep is this grey morn. 

Now in the midst of the old world forlorn 
A mystic child is set in these still hours. 
I keep this time, even before the flowers. 

Sacred to all the young and the unborn; 

To all the miles and miles of unsprung wheat. 
And to the Spring waiting beyond the portal. 
And to the future of my own young art. 

And, among all these things, to you, my sweet. 
My friend, to your calm face and the immortal 
Child tarrying all your life-time in your heart. 



92 



Sonnets 



A SHATTERED LUTE 

I TOUCHED the heart that loved me as a player 
Touches a lyre. Content with my poor skill, 
No touch save mine knew my beloved (and still 
I thought at times : Is there no sweet lost air 

Old loves could wake in him, I cannot share?) 

O he alone, alone could so fulfil 

My thoughts in sound to the measure of my will. 
He is gone, and silence takes me unaware. 

The songs I knew not he resumes, set free 
From my constraining love, alas for me ! 
His part in our tune goes with him; my part 

Is locked in me for ever; I stand as mute 

As one with vigorous music in his heart 
Whose fingers stray upon a shattered lute. 



93 



Sonnets 



RENOUNCEMENT 

I MUST not think of thee; and, tired yet strong, 
I shun the thought that lurks in all delight — 
The thought of thee — and in the blue Heaven's 
height, 
And in the sweetest passage of a song. 

Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng 
This breast, the thought of thee waits, hidden 

yet bright; 
But it must never, never come in sight; 

I must stop short of thee the whole day long. 

But when sleep comes to close each difficult day. 
When night gives pause to the long watch I 
keep. 
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart, 

Must doff my will as raiment laid away, — 
With the first dream that comes with the first 
sleep 
I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart. 



94 



Sonnets 



TO A DAISY 

SLIGHT as thou art, thou art enough to hide 
Like all created things, secrets from me. 
And stand a barrier to eternity. 
And I, how can I praise thee well and wide 

From where I dwell — upon the hither side? 
Thou little veil for so great mystery. 
When shall I penetrate all things and thee, 

And then look back? For this I must abide, 

Till thou shalt grow and fold and be unfurled 
Literally between me and the world. 

Then I shall drink from in beneath a spring. 

And from a poet's side shall read his book. 
O daisy mine, what will it be to look 

From God's side even of such a simple thing? 



95 



Early Poems 



SAN LORENZO'S MOTHER 

I HAD not seen my son's dear face 
(He chose the cloister by God's grace) 
Since it had come to full flower-time. 
I hardly guessed at its perfect prime, 
That folded flower of his dear face. 

Mine eyes were veiled by mists of tears 

When on a day in many years 

One of his Order came. I thrilled, 
Facing, I thought, that face fulfilled. 

I doubted, for my mists of tears. 

His blessing be with me for ever ! 

My hope and doubt were hard to sever. 

— That altered face, those holy weeds. 

I filled his wallet and kissed his beads. 
And lost his echoing feet for ever. 

If to my son my alms were given 
I know not, and I wait for Heaven. 
He did not plead for child of mine. 
But for another Child divine, 
And unto Him it was surely given. 
96 



San Lorenzo's Mother 

There is One alone who cannot change; 
Dreams are we, shadows, visions strange; 

And all I give is given to One. 

I might mistake my dearest son, 
But never the Son who cannot change. 



97 



Early Poems 

THE LOVER URGES THE 
BETTER THRIFT 

MY Fair, no beauty of thine will last 
Save in my love's eternity. 
Thy smiles, that light thee fitfully, 
Are lost for ever — their moment past — 
Except the few thou givest to me. 

Thy sweet words vanish day by day, 

As all breath of mortality; 

Thy laughter, done, must cease to be, 
And all thy dear tones pass away, 

Except the few that sing to me. 

Hide then within my heart, oh, hide 
All thou art loth should go from thee. 
Be kinder to thyself and me. 

My cupful from this river's tide 
Shall never reach the long sad sea. 



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Early Poems 



CRADLE-SONG AT TWILIGHT 



T 



HE child not yet is lulled to rest. 

Too young a nurse, the slender Night 
So laxly holds him to her breast 

That throbs with flight. 



He plays with her, and will not sleep. 

For other playfellows she sighs ; 
An unmaternal fondness keep 

Her alien eyes. 



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Early Poems 



SONG OF THE NIGHT 
AT DAYBREAK 



A 



LL my stars forsake me, 
And the dawn-winds shake me. 
Where shall I betake me? 



Whither shall I run 
Till the set of sun, 
Till the day be done ? 

To the mountain-mine, 
To the boughs o' the pine, 
To the blind man's eyne. 

To a brow that is 
Bowed upon the knees. 
Sick with memories. 



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Early Poems 

A LETTER FROM A GIRL TO 
HER OWN OLD AGE 



E 



ISTEN, and when thy hand this paper presses, 
O time-worn woman, think of her who blesses 
What thy thin fingers touch, with her caresses. 



O mother, for the weight of years that break thee! 
O daughter, for slow time must yet awake thee. 
And from the changes of my heart must make thee. 

O fainting traveller, morn is grey in heaven. 
Dost thou remember how the clouds were driven? 
And are they calm about the fall of even? 

Pause near the ending of thy long migration. 
For this one sudden hour of desolation 
Appeals to one hour of thy meditation. 

Suffer, O silent one, that I remind thee 

Of the great hills that stormed the sky behind thee, 

Of the wild winds of power that have resigned thee. 



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Early Poems 

Know that the mournful plain where thou must 

wander 
Is but a grey and silent world, but ponder 
The misty mountains of the morning yonder. 



Listen : — the mountain winds with rain were 

fretting, 
And sudden gleams the mountain- tops besetting. 
I cannot let thee fade to death, forgetting. 

What part of this wild heart of mine I know not 
Will follow with thee where the great winds blow 

not. 
And where the young flowers of the mountain grow 

not. 

Yet let my letter with thy lost thoughts in it 
Tell what the way was when thou didst begin it. 
And win with thee the goal when thou shalt win it. 

Oh, in some hour of thine my thoughts shall guide 

thee. 
Suddenly, though time, darkness, silence, hide thee. 
This wind from thy lost country flits beside thee, — 



102 



From a Girl to her own Old Age 

Telling thee : all thy memories moved the maiden, 
With thy regrets was morning over-shaden, 
With sorrow, thou hast left, her life was laden. 



But whither shall my thoughts turn to pursue 

thee? 
Life changes, and the years and days renew thee. 
Oh, Nature brings my straying heart unto thee. 

Her winds will join us, with their constant kisses 

Upon the evening as the morning tresses. 

Her summers breathe the same unchanging blisses. 

And we, so altered in our shifting phases. 
Track one another 'mid the many mazes 
By the eternal child-breath of the daisies. 

I have not writ this letter of divining 
To make a glory of thy silent pining, 
A triumph of thy mute and strange declining. 

Only one youth, and the bright life was shrouded. 
Only one morning, and the day was clouded. 
And one old age with all regrets is crowded. 



103 



From a Girl to her own Old Age 

Oh hush, oh hush ! Thy tears my words are 

steeping. 
Oh, hush, hush, hush ! So full, the fount of weeping ? 
Poor eyes, so quickly moved, so near to sleeping? 

Pardon the girl; such strange desires beset her. 
Poor woman, lay aside the mournful letter 
That breaks thy heart; the one who wrote, forget 
her: 

The one who now thy faded features guesses, 

With filial fingers thy grey hair caresses, 

With morning tears thy mournful twilight blesses. 



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Early Poems 



ADVENT MEDITATION 

Rorate Cceli desufer, et nuhes pluant Justum. 
Aperiatur Terra^ et germinet Salvatorem. 

NO sudden thing of glory and fear 
Was the Lord's coming; but the dear 
Slow Nature's days followed each other 
To form the Saviour from his Mother 
— One of the children of the year. 

The earth, the rain, received the trust, 
— The sun and dews, to frame the Just. 

He drew His daily life from these. 

According to His own decrees 
Who makes man from the fertile dust. 

Sweet summer and the winter wild, 
These brought him forth, the Undefiled. 
The happy Springs renewed again 
His daily bread, the growing grain. 
The food and raiment of the Child. 



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Early Poems 



A POET'S FANCIES 
I 

THE LOVE OF NARCISSUS 

LIKE him who met his own eyes in the river, 
The poet trembles at his own long gaze 
^That meets him through the changing nights 
and days 
From out great Nature; all her waters quiver 
With his fair image facing him for ever; 
The music that he listens to betrays 
His own heart to his ears ; by trackless ways 
His wild thoughts tend to him in long endeavour. 

His dreams are far among the silent hills; 

His vague voice calls him from the darkened plain 
With winds at night; strange recognition thrills 

His lonely heart with piercing love and pain; 
He knows again his mirth in mountain rills, 

His weary tears that touch him with the rain. 



io6 



A Poet's Fancies 

II 

TO ANY POET 

HOU who singest through the earth, 
All the earth's wild creatures fly thee; 
Everywhere thou marrest mirth, — 
Dumbly they defy thee; 
There is something they deny thee. 



T 



Pines thy fallen nature ever 
For the unfallen Nature sweet. 
But she shuns thy long endeavour. 

Though her flowers and wheat 
Throng and press thy pausing feet. 

Though thou tame a bird to love thee, 
Press thy face to grass and flowers, 
All these things reserve above thee 

Secrets in the bowers, 
Secrets in the sun and showers. 

Sing thy sorrow, sing thy gladness. 
In thy songs must wind and tree 
Bear the fictions of thy sadness, 

Thy humanity. 
For their truth is not for thee. 



107 



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Early Poems 

Wait, and many a secret nest, 
Many a hoarded winter-store 
Will be hidden on thy breast. 
Things thou longest for 
Will not fear or shun thee more. 

Thou shalt intimately lie 

In the roots of flowers that thrust 

Upwards from thee to the sky. 

With no more distrust. 
When they blossom from thy dust. 

Silent labours of the rain 
Shall be near thee, reconciled; 
Little lives of leaves and grain. 

All things shy and wild. 
Tell thee secrets, quiet child. 

Earth, set free from thy fair fancies 
And the art thou shalt resign. 
Will bring forth her rue and pansies 

Unto more divine 
Thoughts than any thoughts of thine. 

Nought will fear thee, humbled creature. 
There will lie thy mortal burden 
Pressed unto the heart of Nature, 

Songless in a garden. 
With a long embrace of pardon. 



A Poet's Fancies 

Then the truth all creatures tell, 
And His will Whom thou entreatest, 
Shall absorb thee; there shall dwell 

Silence, the completest 
Of thy poems, last, and sweetest. 



Ill 
TO ONE POEM IN A SILENT TIME 
"T ^XTTHO looked for thee, thou little song of 

^ ' This winter of a silent poet's heart 
Is suddenly sweet with thee, but what thou art. 
Mid-winter flower, I would I could divine. 

Art thou a last one, orphan of thy line? 

Did the dead summer's last warmth foster thee? 

Or is Spring folded up unguessed in me. 
And stirring out of sight, — and thou the sign? 

Where shall I look — backwards or to the morrow 
For others of thy fragrance, secret child? 

Who knows if last things or if first things claim 
thee? 

— Whether thou be the last smile of my sorrow, 
Or else a joy too sweet, a joy too wild? 
How, my December violet, shall I name thee? 

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Early Poems 



IV 

THE MOON TO THE SUN 

The Poet sings to her Poet 

AS the full moon shining there 
/-A To the sun that lighteth her 
■^ "^ Am I unto thee for ever, 
O my secret glory-giver ! 
O my light, I am dark but fair, 
Black but fair. 



Shine, Earth loves thee ! And then shine 
And be loved through thoughts of mine. 
All thy secrets that I treasure 
I translate them at my pleasure. 
I am crowned v^ith glory of thine. 
Thine, not thine. 



I make pensive thy delight, 
And thy strong gold silver-white. 
Though all beauty of mine thou makest, 
Yet to earth which thou f orsakest 
I have made thee fair all night. 
Day all night. 



IIO 



A Poet's Fancies 

V 

THE SPRING TO THE SUMMER 

The Poet sings to her Poet 

OPOET of the time to be, 
My conqueror, I began for thee. 
Enter into thy poet's pain, 
And take the riches of the rain. 
And make the perfect year for me. 

Thou unto whom my lyre shall fall, 
Whene'er thou comest, hear my call. 
Oh, keep the promise of my lays. 
Take thou the parable of my days; 
I trust thee with the aim of all. 

And if thy thoughts unfold from me. 
Know that I too have hints of thee. 
Dim hopes that come across my mind 
In the rare days of warmer wind. 
And tones of summer in the sea. 

And I have set thy paths, I guide 
Thy blossoms on the wild hillside. 

And I, thy bygone poet, share 

The flowers that throng thy feet where'er 

I led thy feet before I died. 

Ill 



Early Poems 



VI 
THE DAY TO THE NIGHT 

The Poet sings to his Poet 

FROM dawn to dusk, and from dusk to dawn, 
We two are sundered always. Sweet. 
A few stars shake o'er the high lawn 
And the cold sea-shore when we meet. 
The twilight comes with thy shadowy feet. 

We are not day and night, my Fair, 
But one. It is an hour of hours. 

And thoughts that are not otherwhere 

Are thought here 'mid the blown sea-flowers, 
This meeting and this dusk of ours. 

Delight has taken Pain to her heart, 
And there is dusk and stars for these. 

Oh, linger, linger ! They would not part ; 
And the wild wind comes from over-seas 
With a new song to the olive trees. 

And when we meet by the sounding pine 
Sleep draws near to his dreamless brother. 

And when thy sweet eyes answer mine. 
Peace nestles close to her mournful mother, 
And Hope and Weariness kiss each other. 

112 



A Poet's Fancies 

VII 
A POET OF ONE MOOD 

A POET o£ one mood in all my lays, 
Ranging all life to sing one only love, 
^ Like a west wind across the world I move, 
Sweeping my harp of floods mine own wild ways. 

The countries change, but not the west-wind days 
Which are my songs. My soft skies shine above, 
And on all seas the colours of a dove. 

And on all fields a flash of silver greys. 

I make the whole world answer to my art 

And sweet monotonous meanings. In your ears 

I change not ever, bearing, for my part, 

One thought that is the treasure of my years, 

A small cloud full of rain upon my heart 

And in mine arms, clasped, like a child in tears. 



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Early Poems 

VIII 
A SONG OF DERIVATIONS 

I COME from nothing; but from where 
Come the undying thoughts I bear? 
Down, through long links of death and birth, 
From the past poets of the earth. 
My immortality is there. 

I am like the blossom of an hour. 
But long, long vanished sun and shower 

Awoke my breath i' the young world's air. 

I track the past back everywhere 
Through seed and flower and seed and flower. 

Or I am like a stream that flows 
Full of the cold springs that arose 

In morning lands, in distant hills; 

And down the plain my channel fills 
With melting of forgotten snows. 

Voices, I have not heard, possessed 

My own fresh songs ; my thoughts are blessed 

With relics of the far unknown. 

And mixed with memories not my own 
The sweet streams throng into my breast. 
114 



A Poet's Fancies 

Before this life began to be, 
The happy songs that wake in me 

Woke long ago and far apart. 

Heavily on this little heart 
Presses this immortality. 



IX 
SINGERS TO COME 

NO new delights to our desire 
The singers of the past can yield. 
I lift mine eyes to hill and field, 
And see in them your yet dumb lyre, 
Poets unborn and unrevealed. 

Singers to come, what thoughts will start 
To song? what words of yours be sent 
Through man's soul, and with earth be blent? 

These worlds of nature and the heart 
Await you like an instrument. 

Who knows what musical flocks of words 
Upon these pine-tree tops will light, 
And crown these towers in circHng flight, 

And cross these seas like summer birds. 
And give a voice to the day and night ? 

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Early Poems 

Something of you already is ours; 
Some mystic part of you belongs 
To us whose dreams your future throngs, 

Who look on hills, and trees, and flowers, 
Which will mean so much in your songs. 



I wonder, like the maid who found, 
And knelt to lift, the lyre supreme 
Of Orpheus from the Thracian stream. 

She dreams on its sealed past profound; 
On a deep future sealed I dream. 

She bears it in her wanderings 

Within her arms, and has not pressed 
Her unskilled fingers, but her breast 

Upon those silent sacred strings ; 
I, too, clasp mystic strings at rest. 

For I, i' the world of lands and seas. 
The sky of wind and rain and fire. 
And in man's world of long desire — 

In all that is yet dumb in these — 
Have found a more mysterious lyre. 



ii6 



I 



A Poet's Fancies 

X 

UNLINKED 

F I should quit thee, sacrifice, forswear. 
To what, my art, shall I give thee in keeping? 
To the long winds of heaven ? Shall these come 



sweeping 
My songs forgone against my face and hair? 



Or shall the mountain streams my lost joys bear, 
My past poetic pain in rain be weeping? 
No, I shall live a poet waking, sleeping. 

And I shall die a poet unaware. 

From me, my art, thou canst not pass away ; 
And I, a singer though I cease to sing. 

Shall own thee without joy in thee or woe. 

Through my indifferent words of every day, 
Scattered and all unlinked the rhymes shaU ring. 
And make my poem; and I shall not know. 



117 



ATTHEARDEN PRESS 



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